But..WHY?

Beep...Beep...Beep...beepbeep...beepbeep...beepbeep...beepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeep........

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

You might laugh, but just last month that right there was the theme song of my life.  The alarm clock would run for a good hour before I could will myself out of bed.  It got to the point that I could recognize the time based on the increments the alarms would speed up.  I had no reason to leave my warm comfortable bed in the morning until my roommate started poking me to see if I was still alive because after an hour she too couldn't stand the screeching of the clock.  What little motivation I had to wake up went into pressing the glorious snooze button that gave me an extra five minutes of peace.

This all stopped when I picked up a very interesting book.  Simon Sinek opened my eyes to a whole new way of going about business with "Start With Why"- but I wanted to take it one step further and apply it to my daily life.  I could consider myself a personal business, in fact we function in very similar ways.  We could all think of our names as our personal brand and with that in mind we would need to create our own brand mission statement.  Why do people love apple? Because they are selling the unique individual mindset.  If you wanted the same results just apply it to your personal brand and people would want not necessarily your product but possibly your attention.

That is when it all changed for me - I created my own personal mission statement.  If I were to function strategically like a company I would need to have a good mission to base my decisions on.  As I am very interested in social and environmental responsibility I decided to create one that encompassed these beliefs. "I bring people together to make them realize we are all part of a greater whole - and we need to work together to make a difference".  Simple enough right? NO. 

I found that the common phrase, "actions speak louder than words" to be missing a critical element.  Actions do speak louder, however words are the sturdy base that give power to your actions.  This new "WHY" I had given myself set me up for success.  I knew why I was doing the things I was doing each day.  I knew why I was getting up each morning.  I knew what I was striving for.  This is powerful when you get up and start going.

That was the day I decided to create my blog.  I was tired of being tired, and wanted to put my "WHY" into action.  It gave me the reasons to go out and do what I wanted, and left no excuses to stay wrapped up in the sheets for a dull and boring day.

I hope that my personal brand of "Rachel" can be perpetually changed by a single WHY.  I hope we all can make a big impact with this simple change - we owe it to ourselves.